Sephora is closing all U.S. stores for diversity training on June 5

Abigail Rosenthal, GateHouse Media

Monday

Jun 3, 2019 at 9:18 AM

Beauty retail chain Sephora will close all of its U.S. stores, distribution centers and corporate offices on Wednesday, June 5 for employees to undergo diversity training. The company announced the day-long closure last month on Facebook. Sephora has 400 locations in the U.S.

The training comes a little over a month after Grammy-nominated singer SZA, who is black, said she was racially profiled at a Sephora in Calabasas, California.

Lmao Sandy Sephora location 614 Calabasas called security to make sure I wasn’t stealing . We had a long talk. U have a blessed day Sandy

&mdash; SZA (@sza)May 1, 2019

"Lmao Sandy Sephora location 614 Calabasas called security to make sure I wasn’t stealing,'' SZA wrote on Twitter April 30. "We had a long talk. U have a blessed day Sandy."

A Sephora spokesperson told Reuters that the diversity training was not "a response to any one event," and had been in the works for months.

"We have been informed of an incident at our Calabasas store and in addition to reaching out to SZA directly, we are gathering more information about the incident in order to take the proper next steps,” Emily Shapiro told Reuters in an email. "We take complaints like this very seriously, profiling on the basis of race is not tolerated at Sephora."

Sephora tweeted back to SZA at the time of the incident. "You are a part of the Sephora family, and we are committed to ensuring every member of our community feels welcome and included at our stores,'' Sephora wrote.

SZA said she used to work in a Sephora skincare department in an interview with Refinery29 last year.

Sephora's own diversity training comes a year after Starbucks closed 8,000 stores early for a company-wide racial bias education workshop.

More from GateHouse Media:

JCPenney closing 20 U.S. stores: Is yours on the list?

Krispy Kreme is giving away free doughnuts on National Doughnut Day

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